I watched the Westminster Dog Show Monday and Tuesday nights. What beautiful dogs! I still managed to get some sewing done both nights though:  hand sewing on a binding Monday night and machine sewing a backing last night. I showed you my finished butterfly quilt yesterday - that's the one I finished on Monday. Today I want to share the backing for my hearts quilt.

This is the hearts quilt that I have challenged myself to finish in February 2012. I started it in October at the Ladybug Retreat with the Dogwood Quilt Guild. I am not a "heart" person; I prefer bolder colors and less organized patterns. When I saw this pattern, however, I decided that it was disorganized enough to appeal to me, so I decided to try it. I think everyone has to try a heart quilt at some time. I also threw in a red fabric with liberal amounts of Christmas green in it to add some pop.

I bought this material to use as the border for the quilt, but then decided that there was more pink in the fabric than I thought would work with all of that red. I decided to border the quilt with randomly cut red scraps instead. Now I wish I'd stuck with my original plan. Wait until you see the backing now!

I had six heart squares left over, so I sewed them together to make a band that would reach most of the way across the back. I knew that I would need more fabric for the ends of the band, so I found this inexpensive flat fold fabric in my stash. Since it is a less expensive fabric, the plaid design is not printed straight. If this bothers you, don't buy crooked fabric. I don't care if it's straight (I think crooked lines give more movement and motion to the finished quilt, so I like them!). I liked the way the ends looked, so decided to add smaller borders to the top and bottom as well.

 I auditioned the hearts flush against the heart backing fabric, but I thought it really needed that red border.

 Yep, this is the right combination for me!

Here is my finished backing, partially laid out on a couple of narrow tables in my classroom. I like it! Now to see if I can con Mom into quilting it for me...

 I promised yesterday to show the backing fabric for my appliqued African mask wall hanging. This fabric is beautiful, but it is heavy, tightly woven, and stamped with gold decorative elephants. All of this makes this material very difficult to sew through - especially by hand. Did I mention that I am hand-quilting the applique squares? And the back side of the binding?

 My binding clips help convince this stubborn fabric that it is supposed to fold then lie flat. If I clip the entire quilt and leave the clips on while I work, the fabric is easier to manipulate.

The right side of this photo shows what the quilt will look like when the binding is finished. I can't decide which I'm having more trouble with, folding and sewing the binding or quilting the inside squares. Oh well, back to work.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day! My loving husband brought this lovely Azalea by the school for me before taking Mom and me to lunch this afternoon (He was off work; I wasn't). Unfortunately, it is poisonous to cats, but then so are most of the plants I have in my sunroom. Fortunately, my cats are only interested in eating my African Violets and Catnip plants, both of which are safe for feline consumption. Apparently African Violets are something like a kitty salad - lovely to look at and a treat to eat! : )



Well, we did get some winter weather after all. Well, okay, three days of cold weather, one with snow involved. So okay, it was only about an inch, but it got my husband off work for two days (he works in a small, public school system). It didn't get me off work (I work in a state run vocational school). I went in to my school at 8 a.m. and got sent home at 11 a.m. - just as the weather started clearing. Guess what I did with my suddenly free afternoon...I quilted, of course!



I finally finished the binding on this butterfly fabric quilt that I started about three or four years ago. Maxie helped me display the quilt on the bed so that I could take pictures - of her, of course! 

A quick stretch to test the comfort of this quilt. And I do mean quick - those little paws were moving so fast that they blurred the bottom of my photo! Judging by her refusal to get off of the quilt, it must have passed the comfort test.

I added three simple, straight borders to finish this quilt and bound it in the same blue fabric as the outer border. I did not want an Irish Chain (don't ask me why I didn't, I have no idea), so I swiched the directions of my chains. Again, don't ask me why.

Another project finished, but like the butterfly quilt above, not on my 2012 To Do List. My friend Liz paper pieced this kitty quilt top for me during our 2010 Pizza Box Exchange. Instead of making a block for me, she used the materials to make a compete top. All I had to do was finish it. What a wonderful gift!

Thank you, Liz. Kitty smiles all around.

Liz drew on the kitties' faces with a permanent fabric marker. How cute are they?

I've also been working on machine quilting my completed African mask quilt. I did stitch-in-the-ditch for all of the 2" squares, but I am hand-quilting in an echo pattern around the faces. I am also hand-quilting inside the reverse applique and in the ditch around each face to make it stand out. It may be next year or later before you see the final project at my rate of quilting!

Tomorrow I'll post pictures of the back fabric - you can see part of it on the right side of the quilt in the above photo. I'll also show you pictures of a fabric cake that I bought at a silent auction. Just wait until you see it! So scrumptious that I can't bring myself to dismantle it.

Until tomorrow, have a great day, and hug your sweetie!







It's hard to believe that a year ago today I was looking at my cars and seeing two feet of snow.

Today it's cold and wet, but certainly not snowy. We have have one of the mildest winters on the records. In fact, we have had no measureable snow at all this winter. I really miss it, and not just because I get off of work when the school closes (although, admittedly, that's a bonus).

 

Sinbad and Tessie are practicing staying warm just in case.

Last summer we added a sunroom to the front of our house. We wanted to be able to sit and watch the snow while being surrounded by beautiful plants and flowers. Or at least by the cats. No snow. Quite frankly, if not for the impending cold snap this weekend, I could probably have left most of these plants outside! 

I always water my plants on Friday since I leave work at noon, so today is watering day. Thankfully, it rained bucketfuls last week, so I can use rain water and not my sulpher and sodium rich well water. That is if I can get Sinbad's head out of the watering can. That can has become his new favorite drinking "cup." I keep having to pick hair and whiskers out of the water!

Non-quilting news

I got some good news at work today. The school has been granted funding to update all of the electronics in my classroom. I will finally have enough computers for all of the students to work at the same time, AND I will have a working printer. I've been told that I will also get a better laptop, but we'll see. I'm also getting new computer tables since some of mine are trying to do the splits under the weight of the old computers and monitors. Let's hear it for our legislators for getting us some much needed funding! Yeah! New equipment for the first time in the 13 years I've worked her - the students will appreciate it. 

I don't have much to report on the quilting front. I'm trying to get the binding done on a quilt that I have not yet shown on this blog. Just be patient for a few more days and I should be able to show the finished project.

I'm feeling ambitious!

I've picked THREE projects from my To Do Quilt List to finish in February. Of course, I'm still binding the quilt that I finished in January, so I may have bitten off more than I can chew. All three projects are now finished tops since I finished my African mask applique wall hanging quilt on Sunday. I am currently planning on machine quilting that project myself. I'll stitch-in-the-ditch between the 2" squares, and I don't know yet what I'll do around the masks themselves. Any ideas? Maybe echo quilting?

I plan on asking Mom to quilt the two larger quilts on her medium-arm quilting machine. I bought several bagged battings on sale last week, so I have the materials I need for both quilts. I do need to make the backings (my least favorite aspect of quilting), but it's not like I'm lacking for fabric. If I can get all of the projects bound in the next three weeks (okay, this part is doubtful), I can feel like I've accomplished a lot.

Updates Today

I've just posted a lot more photos on my Quilt Cats and Quilt Time! pages. I have also added a page featuring some of our dogs. Thankfully, I didn't add any more projects to my To Do List page!

I checked out the blog of a friend of mine and saw that she has implemented a stash control method that I think I'm going to have to adopt as well. She compares her fabric used to her new fabric bought. I don't know how well that will work for me - I'm pretty impulsive - but I'll give it some thought... I know my husband would appreciate it if I could keep my stash under control!

First UFO top finished



 As you can see, I haven't started the new Stash Busters project yet. My better judgement reigned, and I chose to finish one of my UFO tops. These are my beginner's applique squares. I don't usually (read that "ever") follow a pattern, but I decided to do so with this project. I'll have to see which magazine this pattern is in and post the name.

This is my second African art quilt. I'll post some pictures on my Quilt Time page of the first one I made. I used a very small amount of my rather extensive collection of African fabrics in the 2 1/2" squares. Mom bought a bag of African fabric scraps for me at a quilt show she attended, and I used quite a few of them as well.  I'll make the backing and then figure out what I want to do about quilting. Mom does 99% of my quilting for me since she has a long arm. Thanks, Mom!